>>I think the second should be faster, so I would be surprised if you got different results in your tests.
>
>What's a good way to test so as to eliminate the effects of cached data and stuff? The data is on free tables on a server on our lan, and I am runnnig the app on my desktop, so the data is coming over the LAN.
>
>I want to be sure I do not mess up the results by having it the data cached or something.

So, what were the results of your tests?